Are you in a gray mood today? How about a blue funk? Maybe
you're seeing red, because you're green with jealousy. The colors we use to
describe emotions may be more useful than you think, according to new research.

The study found that people with depression or anxiety
were more likely to associate their mood with the color gray, while happier
people preferred yellow. The results, which are detailed today in the journal
BMC Medical Research Methodology, could help doctors gauge the moods of
children and other patients who have trouble communicating verbally.

"This is a way of measuring anxiety and depression
which gets away from the use of language," study co-author and
gastroenterologist Peter Whorwell of University Hospital South Manchester told
LiveScience. "What is very interesting is that this might actually be a
better way of capturing the patient's mood than questions."

Colors are often used as metaphors for moods, but no one had
systematically researched color associations, Whorwell said. To investigate, he
and his colleagues picked eight colors — red, orange, green, purple, blue,
yellow, pink and brown — and split each into four shades. They then added
white, black and four shades of gray for a total of 38 options. After meeting
with focus groups, the researchers decided to display the colors in the form of
a wheel.

Next, they recruited 105 healthy adults, 110 anxious adults
and 108 depressed adults and mailed them printouts of the color wheel. Each
person was asked to pick their favorite color, as well as the color they were
most "drawn to." Finally, they were asked to pick a color that
described their day-to-day mood over the last several months. Another group of
204 healthy volunteers classified each color as positive, negative or neutral.

Whether depressed, anxious or healthy, people liked blue and
yellow. Blue 28 on the color wheel was the most popular favorite color among
healthy people, while Blue 27 (which is a little darker than 28) got first
place among people with anxiety and depression. Meanwhile, Yellow 14 was picked
as the color most likely to catch the eye.

But when it came to mood, the groups diverged. Only 39
percent of healthy people associated their mood with a color at all. Of those
who did, Yellow 14 was the most popular choice, with about 20 percent of the
votes. Meanwhile, about 30 percent of people with anxiety picked a shade of
gray, as did more than half of depressed volunteers. In comparison, healthy
volunteers described their mood with a shade of gray only about 10 percent of
the time.

The researchers also found that when assigning a mood to
colors, saturation matters.

"A light blue is not associated with a poor mood, but a
dark blue is," Whorwell said. "The shade of color is more important
than the color itself."

Whorwell is now testing the wheel on patients with irritable
bowel syndrome. He's hoping that color choices can reveal patients' attitudes
and predict how well they will respond to treatments like hypnosis. Because
people are embarrassed by gastroenterogical symptoms, Whorewell said,
non-verbal methods of getting information are sometimes preferable to
conversation. And, he said, with additional research, the wheel could be used
in medical fields from pediatrics to surgery.

"You've got an instrument now," Whorwell said.
"Now people have to play with it and find out the applications."

Stephanie Pappas

Stephanie Pappas is a contributing writer for Live Science. She covers the world of human and animal behavior, as well as paleontology and other science topics. Stephanie has a Bachelor of Arts in psychology from the University of South Carolina and a graduate certificate in science communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She has ducked under a glacier in Switzerland and poked hot lava with a stick in Hawaii. Stephanie hails from East Tennessee, the global center for salamander diversity. Follow Stephanie on Google+.